Southwest Art Previews Cumulus Show

Los Angeles, CA

Maxwell Alexander Gallery, March 10-31

Dennis Ziemienski, Summer Thunderhead, Monument Valley, oil, 20 x 30.

Dennis Ziemienski, Summer Thunderhead, Monument Valley, oil, 20 x 30.

We probably take them for granted more often than we should. This month, however, clouds receive a well-deserved tribute at Maxwell Alexander Gallery, where 12 leading western artists portray these billowing beauties of the sky in more than a dozen new paintings of the American West. Fittingly titled Cumulus, the exhibition opens on Saturday, March 10.

 

Devotees of historic western art might presume the show is a commemorative nod to early western landscape painters like Maynard Dixon (1875-1946), who frequently depicted massive, showstopping cloudscapes over low-lying horizons. But gallery owner Beau Alexander is quick to note that, while this group of contemporary painters may be influenced by such artists, it’s not the focus of the exhibition. “We’re really trying to look forward,” he says. “These artists are cutting their own path and doing something a little different.”

Among those portraying clouds in a new light are Eric Bowman, Scott Burdick, Phil Epp, Danny Galieote, and Michael Klein. The artists were invited to interpret the theme in any way—and any size—they saw fit, notes Alexander. The result is a diverse collection of cloud-infused scenes that range in tenor from whimsical to contemplative.

Bowman, a western native, has given the theme plenty of thought himself. “Clouds are such enigmatic elements in our landscape’s skies, constantly moving and shape-shifting, especially here in the West where they’ve helped define wide-open spaces like Montana’s Big Sky Country,” he says.

Clouds typically play a “backup role” in his landscape paintings, says the Oregon artist, but in his major work for the show, titled "Levels and Degrees" they take center stage. “I wanted to create some cloud iconography using various levels of depth, large-mass shapes, and temperature shifts to convey a larger-than-life impact,” he explains. Bowman strategically set his cloudscape over southern Utah’s ancient bluffs and canyons, both to support the composition’s vertical design and to create a “large-scale, heroic feel,” he says. “As a design feature, clouds can theoretically be shaped into any configuration imaginable, and in this case, hopefully they inspire our imagination about how large and legendary the West really is.”

Landscape artist Phil Epp has been painting clouds for years, and like Bowman, he thrills in their potentially endless configurations. In his cloud-dominant painting "Hilltop Trio", Epp portrays a triad of horses in the Kansas hills near his home. They are dwarfed, however, by a cobalt-blue sky with plump, unfurling clouds that fill nearly 80 percent of the picture plane. “In my imagery, it’s basically earth and sky, and clouds become the characters of the scene,” says Epp. “I don’t intend for them to be realistic. I make an effort to show vastness, space, and emptiness. Out West, you’ve got the ground ahead of you and the sky above you, and that’s about as basic and primal as it gets.”

If anyone can inspire us to glance skyward with a deeper appreciation for clouds, surely this group of artists can. “We all know what clouds look like,” notes Alexander, “but it’s not until master artists share their vision that our own vision opens up.” —Kim Agricola

To view the Cumulus exhibition, click here.

 

Maxwell Alexander Gallery Celebrates their Five Year Anniversary

Dear Art Enthusiasts, Artists, Friends, and Family: 

My name is Beau Alexander, owner and operator of Maxwell Alexander Gallery.   I am happy to announce that today, December 15, 2017, is officially the five year anniversary of our gallery. 

On December 15, 2012 we held our first exhibition opening simply titled:  "Grand Opening."  The show, which opened in our Culver City location, featured some of the best realist artists in the country including Kim Cogan, Glenn Dean, Logan Maxwell Hagege, Jeremy Lipking. David Kassan, Billy Schenck, and Joseph Todorovitch, just to name a few.   

I clearly remember the night before I had a dream (or nightmare)-- that literally no one showed up to the opening.  Why would they?  We opened the gallery with almost no press, no investment, no advice.  It took us a month to open our doors because we couldn't get an insurance company to grant us a fine art policy.  We had to personally guarantee the building lease incase of a default.  The only weapon in our arsenal was our vision.  Our vision came from the mind of my brother and artist, Logan Maxwell Hagege.  It was to create a safe space, where artists were treated right, and most importantly to give a group of young quality artists a venue to shine:  The New Breed of Fine Art.   That was and still is our tagline.   To my surprise, we had over 400 people attend opening night...a line down the block -- it was clear that collectors understood our vision, we didn't have to explain it.  (continued below)

 

Maxwell Alexander Gallery: Grand Opening 12/15/12

It didn't hurt that my brother's artist friends were some of the best in the country.   The only reason our gallery has been successful is because of the artists that have agreed to associate themselves with us.   Without their trust in us we wouldn't have lasted a year, let alone five.   Social media has also played a large role in our success.  It only seemed natural to us - share good art, people will respond.  And you have.  

Our knowledge and experiences in the art world have made our gallery a magnet for not only the best artists, but emerging artists as well.  Noted discoveries that had never shown in a gallery prior to Maxwell Alexander Gallery include Brett Allen Johnson, Mark Maggiori, and Vincent Xeus.  All three are names you probably know by now.  Early on we became known for our themed group exhibits that brought together different genres and artists that would have never thought they'd be showing together in the same space.   Our Black Friday exhibit was created so young collectors would have a chance to live with and feel the power of original art in their homes (Black Friday 2017 sold 50 pieces of original art in one day).  

We were the first gallery to show Glenn Dean's figure series - they've been selling out ever since.  We hold the price record sale for Logan Maxwell Hagege for his 2016 painting "Doorway in the Sky," 80"x80" Oil.   We've hosted numerous sold out exhibitions, including four in 2017.  We've revitalized and propelled numerous others simply by presenting their work in a different light.  We regularly consult for museums around the country who are trying to figure out why artists and collectors want to be part of the movement we've created.  It's no surprise museum show rosters look very similar to our own.   (Cont. below)

 

Glenn Dean "Holding Steady" Oil 30"x30" 

Logan Maxwell Hagege "Doorway in the Sky" Oil 80"x80"

Mark Maggiori "Down the Wash" Oil 40"x40" 

Vincent Xeus "Emma Choosing" Oil 30"x20"

We've been bullied by older galleries and misunderstood by certain collectors - but there is no doubt that those who are able to look forward understand. 

As I reminisce on the last five years I can't help but look forward.  We recently moved into a 3500 sq ft gallery with 16 foot high ceilings in booming Downtown Los Angeles.  We are hosting major exhibitions in 2018 that include artists: Cesar Santos, Sean Cheetham, Mian Situ, Danny Galieote, G. Russell Case, Eric Bowman, and a joint show with Joshua LaRock and Michael Klein.   New works in the gallery from John Moyers, Serge Marshennikov, Ed Mell, and Tim Solliday are just a few other things to look forward to.   We have started to include installations and interactive exhibits during our openings.  In my opinion the traditional art opening has become stale.  We are constantly experimenting to keep fine art interesting - especially to the new generation of collectors.   I'd like to invite everyone to visit our new arrivals page where we try to highlight new works that we receive on a weekly and monthly basis.  You can do so by clicking HERE


I can go on forever, but I'd like to end by thanking all of our supporters, collectors, magazines who write articles on our openings and the artists we represent.  I'd like to thank Logan Maxwell Hagege for creating a movement that has given many artists a new life.   Most importantly I'd like to thank all the artists that have shown or wanted to show in our gallery.  We all owe a debt to you. 

Peace and Love, 
Beau Alexander

 

Jeremy Mann Installation during OPUS 27 solo exhibition July 2017

Jeremy Mann Installation during OPUS 27 solo exhibition July 2017

Serge Marshennikov "Resting" Oil 23"x32"

John Moyers "Tres Hermanos" Oil 36"x24" 

Brett Allen Johnson "Refuge Under an Arid Sun" Oil 40"x36"

Maxwell Alexander Gallery's New Location 

 

 

 

Southwest Art Previews Mark Maggiori Show

Show Preview | Mark Maggiori

By: Southwest Art | November 15, 2017

 

Mark Maggiori, In Altitude, oil, 24 x 30.

Mark Maggiori, In Altitude, oil, 24 x 30.

by Laura Rintala

A cowboy peers down at the rocky trail as his horse picks its way through the loose rock and sagebrush, while behind them the ground falls away to distant snowcapped peaks against a blue sky. In another scene—a nocturne—another cowboy shifts his weight in the saddle and gives his horse rein to make its way down a steep, shrubby incline, the full moon highlighting distant canyon walls. These two paintings, and seven more canvases that examine the often solitary beauty of cowboy life, are on view this month in Mark Maggiori’s solo show entitled Lonesome Souls. It opens at Maxwell Alexander Gallery on Saturday, December 9, with an artist’s reception from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.

“When I started work for the show, I was going up to Wyoming [and photographing] cowboys,” Maggiori explains. “For two or three days we were on the Continental Divide. It was very inspiring for me visually. When I came back, I wanted to paint what I had just experienced.” After working through his photos and making sketches, the artist realized a recurring theme: “I ended up painting mostly lonesome cowboys,” he says. “My feeling is that the cowboy life is very lonesome. It’s a feeling of being far from world reality and having symbiosis with nature.” And the painter, alone in his studio day after day, recognized the parallel to his own work. “There’s the beauty of [that solitude] as well as the hard part,” he says.

Lonesome Souls is Maggiori’s second solo show at the gallery and, notes gallery director Beau Alexander, his second solo show ever. “In this show we’re seeing Mark’s style develop. His ability as an artist and his voice as an artist has really matured since his first show in 2015. This show is cohesive and focused on the lonesome cowboy on the range in different scenarios.”

Maggiori pays particular attention to making his images timeless. “I don’t want to mark [a time period] through [the tack or] gear—when you’re a specialist you know it is [contemporary]. But I want to stay on the iconic side of the West,” he says. “That is what brought me to paint cowboys. That is what I have been fascinated with.”

And those cowboys are depicted as larger than life. “I cheat scale. My cowboys are 20 times bigger than they are supposed to be,” he says. And while there is limited human interaction depicted, Maggiori explores other relationships. “We don’t say enough about how important the horse is to that person being in that place and having that experience,” he says.

“The solo show is such a special event for collectors,” Alexander says. “In group shows you see one or two paintings by an artist, maybe three. But you can’t know an artist without seeing them in a solo exhibition, their small works, large works. Mark’s been working on this show for a long time, and we’re excited to be able to present it to the public.”

For more work by Mark Maggiori, click here.

Southwest Art Profiles Tim Solliday

Tim Solliday’s paintings present a poetic vision of an earlier time

By Gussie Fauntleroy

This story was featured in the July 2017 issue of Southwest Art magazine. 

The first time Tim Solliday walked into the Los Angeles home and studio of the artist who would become his most important teacher, it felt like stepping into a movie from the 1920s. The ramshackle Spanish-style house was filled with antique furniture and décor: Oriental carpets covered the floors, while paintings, sculptures, stacks of prints, and other art objects were scattered about.

Looking back, Solliday finds it appropriate that Theodore Lukits (1897-1992) seemed to belong to an earlier era. Through the Lukits Academy of Fine Arts, the Romanian-American painter was offering something that—in the mid-1970s, when Solliday studied with him—had long gone out of style in American art education: academic instruction in the atelier manner, taking students slowly through the foundations of drawing and painting, beginning with only black and white.

At a time when representational painting was overshadowed by abstract and conceptual art, Lukits and his school filled a void. “Almost nobody knew who John Singer Sargent was when I was a kid,” Solliday laments. The atelier approach was a perfect fit for someone who left a Long Beach-area college because the art instructors had nothing but ridicule for Norman Rockwell and the other illustrators he admired; someone who since childhood had been mesmerized by great painting but was told it would not be possible to make a living that way. “I thought traditional art was dead on the vine, but I still believed I would do it,” Solliday says. “I always thought there was room for everything in art.”

In fact, he was right. Not only did collectors open their arms again to landscape, still-life, and figurative art, but Solliday—who paid for his art instruction by working as an apprentice billboard painter in Southern California—was right about his own ability to forge a successful career in representational fine art. His widely collected work is now in the permanent collections of the Briscoe Western Art Museum and the National Museum of Wildlife Art and has been exhibited at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, the Autry Museum, and the Carnegie Museum of Art, as well as other museums and galleries.

Solliday’s early conception of his artistic future leaned toward the illustration field. His father was a technical illustrator for Douglas Aircraft Company, a job that took the family from Solliday’s birth state of Iowa to the Palos Verdes Peninsula in Southern California, where as a young teen he had a horse. Although he had no interest in technical illustration, he was inspired by his father’s artistic ability and obsessed with drawing. Meanwhile, western movies of the 1950s and early ’60s left a lasting impression, offering a glimpse of how effectively visual qualities could stir the emotions and convey particular moods.

When Solliday’s college foray into art turned into disappointment, billboards became his training ground. In those days the work was often done in hangar-sized studios where mechanical scaffolding positioned a painter where he needed to be on the 14-by-48-foot image. Solliday learned to handle paint. He adopted disciplined work habits. He became adept at depicting texture—everything from a beer can to a horse to a girl on the beach. And it was through his fellow billboard painters that he learned of Lukits. In the 1940s and ’50s the billboard company routinely sent painters to Lukits to refine their skills. That was no longer happening by Solliday’s time, but individual billboard painters would go to Lukits on their own after work, often inviting fellow painters in whom they noticed an unusually high level of interest and talent.

So it was that Solliday found himself at Lukits’ home and studio, feeling as if he had stumbled onto a Hollywood movie set. That first night he was the last of the students to leave. Finally glimpsing the possibility of art instruction that matched his goals, he felt a kindred spirit in the older artist, then in his 80s, and the two talked until well after midnight. “I thought, okay, he’s a source of knowledge for me,” Solliday recalls. For five years he went to Lukits’ studio two or three nights a week after work. The intensive instruction began with learning to draw not from live models but from plaster casts or marble sculptures of the human form. From this came an essential understanding of using values of light and dark to produce a sense of three-dimensional form. For Solliday it was a revolutionary way of seeing and of rendering what he saw. “I thought, wow, what a difference from trying to draw from out of your head.”

Eventually, color came into the mix. Lukits would set up still-life arrangements for the students, presenting increasingly complex color problems to work out in paint. He used special lighting to simulate various conditions of outdoor light: intense yellow overhead for midday, blue for moonlight, a slanted angle of warm light for sunset, or a veil to mimic fog. “He was very honest,” Solliday says of his teacher. “He told us we’d never learn true color until we got outdoors, but he also knew it’s very difficult to paint outdoors, so we had a head start.” Soon the young artist could look again at the work of artists he admired and see what made them great. “It was thrilling,” he says.

Among the earlier painters who made a lasting impression on Solliday were illustrator Dean Cornwell (1892-1960) and Cornwell’s mentor, Anglo-Welsh artist Sir Frank Brangwyn (1867-1956). By studying Brangwyn’s paintings and drawings, Solliday began to understand that an arresting composition starts with massive shapes and the juxtaposition of forms. Brangwyn, and Monet before him, also opened Solliday’s eyes to the use of broken color, which lets the viewer’s eye mix colors that are adjacent on the canvas, having been applied as separate brush strokes. “It’s all about colors bouncing off other colors, or the illusion of brightness by adding gray around the strong colors,” Solliday says. “I’m known as a colorist, but if you study my work in person, you’ll see a great deal of gray.”

Solliday especially admires the use of gray to influence color in the work of western painter Frank Tenney Johnson (1874-1939). As it turns out, Solliday worked for a time in the Alhambra, CA, studio that once was Johnson’s. He’s also had use of the former studio of William Merritt Chase (1849-1916). These days the 65-year-old artist stands at his easel in the light-filled space on the top floor of the historic First Baptist Church—one of Pasadena’s largest, built in 1926. With arched stained-glass windows and a high ceiling, the studio has a touch of the medieval but with fresh white walls and state-of-the-art lighting that Solliday installed when he leased the space two years ago. It’s worth all the steps he climbs each day to reach it, he says.

For many years Solliday was known as a landscape painter, capturing California’s natural beauty, especially through his plein-air work. He continues to use the landscape as the setting for his imagery, but now his focus is on the Native Americans, mountain men, and others who carried out their lives on the land. It’s a full-circle swing back to his boyhood fascination with the Old West—minus the confrontation—with special inspiration from the work of the Taos Society of Artists. When Native people and European-Americans interact in Solliday’s paintings, as they do in FRONTIER COMMERCE, it is in quiet encounters reflecting a feeling of mutual respect. The painting, as with much of his work, gave the artist an opportunity to combine intricate details, like beadwork on clothing, within the almost stage-set context of beautifully balanced color and solid, muscular shapes.

Similarly, COURTSHIP places a young Indian couple in a forest of dappled sun and shade as a horse grazes close by. “It’s about love blooming out of the peacefulness,” Solliday says. Both paintings are part of this year’s Prix de West Invitational show at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, on view through August 6. The two paintings reflect the artist’s shift not only in subject matter but also painting style. In both areas, Solliday has moved to a less literal, more imaginative approach. “It’s all based on classical principles of composition, light, and drawing,” he says, “but I had to come to a place that’s a little more free.”

What this means when he starts a new painting is sitting down with paper and scribbling abstract lines and shapes until they begin to suggest compelling forms, and a painting idea emerges from there. Then he turns to his trove of plein-air sketches, his collection of books and artifacts, and a well of artistic knowledge to flesh it out. More important than a literal interpretation is a feeling and mood that “moves the soul,” he believes. Like the best filmmakers who use camera angles, filters, and composition to produce a visually memorable scene, Solliday understands the powerful visceral impact of thoughtfully rendered color and form. “Every time I saw a poetic scene in a movie, especially westerns, it went into my mind,” he says. “And now it’s coming out.”

WESTERN ART COLLECTOR COVERS "TAOS" GROUP EXHIBIT

The small town of Taos, New Mexico, has provided inspiration for Western artists since Joseph Henry Sharp first visited there in 1893. The art haven is the subject of a new group show at Maxwell Alexander Gallery, which opens with a reception from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. on September 23 and remains on view through October 7, and features the artwork of Danny Galieote, Kim Wiggins, David Grossmann, John Moyers, Tim Solliday and Logan Maxwell Hagege.

“The mix of cultures in Taos, its history and its beautiful surroundings make it a fascinating place to paint,” Grossmann says. His painting Clouded Sunset, Taos, captures an adobe structure called La Morada on the outskirts of Taos, which was part of a Catholic monastery dating back to the late 1700s. “The evening that I did this painting, the silence of La Morada seemed to carry a hidden history, a feeling echoed by the clouds that veiled the glowing sunset. I wanted to capture the sense of deep solitude and the way that the adobe walls seemed so connected to the land.”

In Galieote’s The Watchers, three protectors watch over their Pueblo family. “I wanted the figures to conjure a feeling of order and stability and that nothing could get past their glistening inscrutable eyes,” Galieote explains. “The middle figure seemed to naturally take his place as the wisest and the one who will have the final word to carry forth in war or in peace.”

Taos is an alluring subject for Wiggins. The landscape and the history imbue a sense of importance in his work. “My work, One Night at Taos Pueblo, centers on the iconic San Geronimo de Taos Mission located at the Taos Pueblo,” he explains. “In the painting two beautiful Pueblo children stand outside the mission under the light of a full moon. This painting is both symbolic and ethereal in nature hopefully capturing the very heart and resilience of the Taos people.”

View the show preview HERE

American Art Collector Previews Jeremy Mann's solo exhibition "OPUS 27"

Theater of Light

In the early 20th century Florenz Ziegfeld, creator of the Ziegfeld Follies musical revues on Broadway, was widely known for his muses, elaborately costumed chorus girls often called Ziegfeld Girls. The girls were the primary residents in Ziegfeld’s fantastical worlds of music and drama. “[H]e simply couldn’t stop being more and more lavish with every show,” wrote his wife after his death in 1932. “...the world remembers Mr. Ziegfeld as the man who revealed a whole new world of color and light and gaiety in the modern musical revue.”


Using the iconic Ziegfeld Girls and the era that they thrived in as inspiration, painter Jeremy Mann will be presenting a new collection of work at an exhibition July 15 at Maxwell Alexander Gallery in Los Angeles. The show will open the gallery’s brand-new space, which will be decorated with the installations the artist used for his photo shoots. For the opening guests are encouraged to come dressed in their finest and interact with the installations. The exhibition is a collaboration with Christina Molcillo of Black Lotus Clothing, who used Ziegfeld Girls as models for her designs, including dresses, gowns, headpieces and other antique materials.


“Many good things come out of collaborations in unexpected ways,” Mann says of working with Molcillo. “Wanting to not only keep my hands from detaining the unexpected, but also with respect to another artist’s unhindered personal visions, Christina developed and created the wardrobe and sets with unobstructed direction, based on a few meetings and her own research into my stylistic tendencies combined with her own artistic style.”


Their collaboration can be seen in works such as Luna and Moonlight, both featuring a female figure elegantly dressed in front of a prop crescent moon. Like Ziegfeld’s girls, and the photos of them that have survived, these figures have an element of theater to their presence amid carefully placed light, oversized stage elements and beautifully designed costuming. They are at once sumptuous and also vulnerable within Mann’s cool shadows and delicate brushstrokes.


“Having a theme to hold everything loosely together and give direction, we both have affections for the 1920s and the Ziegfeld Girl style, crossed with some [Alphonse] Mucha and modernity, as well as theater and darkness,” says Mann. “The moon stage grew from that era’s fascination with it as often seen as a moon with a painted face upon the stage. The timeless feeling is always something I prefer in my paintings, creating a haze of memory and capturing fleeting moments in perpetual paintings which draw up those same emotions, something dreamlike and lost, or a thing once wonderful and now forgotten.”


These “dreamlike” qualities overlap with much of Mann’s current state as an artist, in which he says he’s diving further into the cerebral ether of creation. “I suppose these would be my foggy years. I’ve been exploring deeper into the feelings evoked from atmosphere and light, how their effects work both with and against form, while eliciting emotions of fading memories, things past and times ceaseless endurance,” he says. “Logically this exploration evolved from my endeavors with film and Polaroid photography from the homemade cameras, and now into video and films using homemade lenses to capture that same effect, without the need for digital manipulations—I’ve a badinkling about most things digital. Film and video have a direct connection with ‘time’ and that is something which I desire to have a stronger place in my paintings. What an artist does with their time when not painting affects the painting even more than when they are.”

Mann’s show, which will also feature his bold cityscapes, will continue through August 12 in Los Angeles

To view more of Mann's work, click here.

Courtesy of American Art Collector magazine